WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Thursday, September 06, 2012

I hope all is well out your way. Lisa and I were very disappointed we couldn't get out to see you and Corrina, and of course Prudence, this year.

Anyway, while we were travelling on the train from Oxford to London on July 18th our train stopped outside the station at (I think) Reading. I looked out the window and in a field across from the tracks saw what looked to me for all

the world like an ABC; dark shape reminiscent
of a Puma. I yelled to Lisa then snapped off a couple of pictures before the train moved on. I attached two versions of it here for you.

The first is the cropped version, but the second is uncropped and shows somebody's cat wandering around. So close!

Life trundles on. Graham is presently on his way to Barnstaple to collect my old mate Richard Freeman, and also my dear old Kenwood HiFi amp which gave up the ghost last week. However 'Mr Fixit' in Bideford has done something arcane to it and given it a clean bill of health. So, hopefully my hi-fi will be restored to its full magnificence sooner rather than later. However, if anyone has a single B&W DM110 speaker floating around that is surplus to requirements, I would love to sign the adoption papers...

I am indebted to my brother-in-law, a stalwart fan of the sort of music that I write about (who else would give me a copy of the first Quatermass album for my birthday?) for sending me this Led Zeppelin article which appeared in The Guardian yesterday. As it features interviews with two Gonzo stalwarts - Michael Des Barres and Tony Palmer - I have every excuse to repost it...http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/link-stairway-to-heaven-and-hell-rise.html

We have been waiting for this for ages, but finally Mimi Page's 'Black Valentine' music video is now visible. Back in the spring she told me "‘Black Valentine’, it’s kind of like, it’s the video’s struggle that darkness that takes over me and me fighting it off and, I don’t know, it’s ... I wrote the song in my apartment, but in my mind I had an alternate reality and it’s like, you know, this girl, the story of this girl who lives in this castle and has this huge kind of Edward Scissorhands-like studio with keyboards, and synthesisers and knobs." Right on sister.http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/mimi-page-wrote-to-me-last-night.html

I was going to blog about this, but my lovely wife Corinna beat me to it. She was a prog fan back in the day (still is) and she took exception to Messrs Collins and Wakeman (on the YouTube version of 'Prog Britannia') saying that there were no chicks in their audiences in those days. Criminy, the reason I first fell in love with her is because she had gone to see 'Henry Cow'...http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/corinna-downes-vs-messrs-wakeman-and.html

This has very little to do with the main body of the Gonzo Daily, which is - after all - about artists who appear on Gonzo Multimedia, but it is a news item of great interest to rock historians, and as I am a rock historian I am reosting it. It has long been claimed that Rory Storm was one of the great lost heros of rock and roll, and now we are going to have the chance to find out if it was true...http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/09/newslink-recordings-of-beatles-ringo.html

The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow

On this day in 2003 Warren Zevon died. Zevon was most famous for his catchy and often quirky rock songs including Werewolves of London, Excitable Boy (a catchy ditty about a murdering grave-robber) and Rowland the Headless Thompson Gunner.

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